Some Christian voices have complained for years about religious persecution of conservative Christians in the United States.
Honestly, I paid little attention to their warnings. Persecution was something that happened in other parts of the world. For example, Morning Star News published an in-depth report May 25 of Christians in the villages of Katholi and Sukma in India who were attacked, beaten, some tortured, homes burned and forced from their villages.
The reason, the news service wrote, was that Hindu villagers became convinced their gods were angry because neighbors had become Christians.
That is religious persecution and that does not happen in the United States except in rare and isolated cases.
But the definition of religious persecution is broader than torture and killings. One definition of religious persecution is “the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group of individuals as a response to their religious beliefs or affiliations or lack thereof.” Another definition reads, “The act of harassing, oppressing or killing people because of their differences from society.”
It was certainly religious persecution when the Roman Emperor Nero had the apostle Paul beheaded and the apostle Peter reportedly crucified upside down in a Roman arena. It was religious persecution when Christians and Jews were driven from Rome by Emperor Claudius. And it was religious persecution when Peter and John were ordered by Jewish authorities not to preach the gospel as reported in Acts 5:28, 40.
One form of persecution was physical (killings). One was social (banishment). One was mental and spiritual (command not to speak). But all fall under the definition of religious persecution.
‘Wrong answer’
Consider what is happening to Ruth Neely. She is a municipal court judge and part-time circuit court magistrate in Pinedale, Wyoming. After that state’s Supreme Court overturned the state’s ban on same-sex unions, Neely was asked by a reporter if she was excited about performing gay weddings. Neely answered that her biblical convictions about marriage precluded her from solemnizing such unions.
Her response was the wrong answer for the Wyoming Commission on Judicial Conduct and Ethics. The unanimous recommendation of the Commission was that she be removed from office. The recommendation asserted her statement about the sanctity of marriage was tantamount to a refusal to obey the law.
Important to the case is the fact that as a municipal court judge Neely has no authority to officiate at weddings. As a circuit court magistrate she can preside over weddings at her discretion. She is not required by office to perform any weddings.
Neely’s attorneys argue the Commission on Judicial Conduct and Ethics effectively said no one who shares Neely’s biblical views about marriage can be a judge in Wyoming. In essence the Commission created a “religious test” for judicial office and a “religious test” for public office and is a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Is the Neely case religious persecution? Is she being harassed or oppressed because of her religious beliefs? It certainly seems so.
On the other side of the country Harvard law professor Mark Tushnet, a constitutional scholar, recently wrote on a blog that conservative and religious objectors to same-sex “marriage” should be treated like Nazis following the end of World War II.
Tushnet lauds the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) activists for taking a “hardline approach” and tolerating no accommodation for opposing points of view. “My own judgment,” he wrote, “is that taking a hardline (‘you lost, live with it’) is better than trying to accommodate the losers.
“Trying to be nice to the losers didn’t work well after the Civil War, nor after Brown (v. Board of Education),” Tushnet added. “And taking a hardline seemed to work reasonably well in Germany and Japan after (World War II).”
In Tushnet’s new world there is no room for minority voices, no place for dissenting opinions. He disenfranchises all who believe the traditional understanding that marriage is the union of one man and one woman.
Is that religious persecution? Is that an effort to isolate, to marginalize citizens because of their religious views? Does that fall under the definition of social persecution? Again, it seems so.
There are other examples that raise similar questions. They range from television shows being canceled (the Benham brothers lost their HGTV show) to broadcasters being fired (Curt Schilling fired by ESPN) to economic boycotts (Chick-fil-A) because biblically based views did not correspond to politically correct social positions.
How should Christians respond to instances like these? Perhaps with the same type of courage as the Indian Christian believers in Katholi and Sukma. When assaulted by mobs and told to deny their faith in Jesus, they refused. The mobs’ response was to beat and burn them.
Mary Eberstadt, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, recently observed that Christians and churches who capitulate to this intolerance (and shall we say religious persecution) are on a path of destruction. She declared, “The results (of religious capitulation) are plain to see: the churches that tried to protect themselves in that way are dying.”
It was Jesus Himself who promised that persecution — whether physical, social, mental or spiritual — would be the fate of His followers. John 15:20 records Jesus urging, “Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me they will persecute you also.”
In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus taught “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me” (Matt. 5:11).
The apostle Paul penned that famous question, “What shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” (Rom. 8:35). The response, “No. In all these we are more than conquerors through Him who loves us” (v. 37).
Perhaps as the culture of the United States changes Christians should read again these important verses for religious persecution in this nation may no longer be an idle discussion.
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